


The Gaps Between Reality

by GoldenFreckles



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Betrayal, Character Death, F/M, Fire, Minor Character Death, Multi, Reunions, Slow Burn, Survival, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-03-12 20:43:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 18,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13555215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldenFreckles/pseuds/GoldenFreckles
Summary: "You're alive..." Bellamy's voice trailed off into nothingness. He felt his heart pounding in his ears, no, everywhere. He thought if it were possible his heart would burst out of his chest.Clarke smiled, warm and genuine. "It's me. I'm real, Bellamy.""I left you." He looked down, years of guilt caught up with him and he was suddenly out of his depth, he wanted to break down, to hold her as tightly as he could and never let go.Her hand lightly grazed his face, and he looked into her eyes, they sparkled with life. "No," She said, "You used your head, now you can use your heart..."





	1. 6 Years On...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first fanfiction and I am super nervous so I would really love it if you guys could give me some feedback as I would love to improve my writing! I have really big plans for this fanfiction. Also I'm really sorry for how short this first chapter is, I promise the others will be longer :) xxx

Bellamy

"We’ve been through a lot together, you and I." Her words still haunted him, he tried to forget, to forgive himself. He couldn’t, he killed his best friend. 

"You’ve got such a big heart, Bellamy."

"Clarke, people follow you."

"You inspire them because of this, but the only way to make sure we survive is if you use this, too."

"I got you for that."

‘I got you for that’ He didn’t anymore, he left her to die alone on the dying Earth. He cursed himself many times over for that, more times than he could count. 

Why the hell didn’t you stay down there with her? 

Bellamy didn’t care about dying, and he wouldn’t exactly call this living. The first year on the ring had been rough, the algae farm took a while to start producing sufficient amounts of food to live on, until then they ate the disgusting nutrient paste from Becca’s lab.   
On top of that, it took Emori and Echo a lot longer to adjust to life in space, the home they once knew had been ravished and destroyed, leaving behind not a single trace of their existence. For the other five it was frustration. They were back where they started. Back to square one. 

Emotions ran high for a while, a couple of weeks after Praimfaya they held a funeral for Clarke and Jasper. A burial without a body. They all gave speeches. Monty spoke the longest for Jasper, telling them how they used to break into the green houses on the Ark and steal the weed and get ridiculously high in store rooms. He broke down halfway through, that was when they realised they never got to grieve. Were they past it? Should they even begin to? 

When they got around to Clarke, Raven asked Bellamy if he wanted to say anything. What could he say? Instead he got up without a word and walked into the corridor silently. He tried to stifle a cry, but the tears welled up and blurred his vision. Bellamy broke down sobbing in a heap on the floor, his wails for Clarke reflecting off the walls to him, ringing in his ears. He was aware the others could hear him but what did he care? The last of his cares died with her. 

But time went on, 6 years to be precise, and the seven were prepared to do everything in their power to get back down to Earth again. To see the early morning sun cast golden light onto the clouds above, almost like one of those renaissance paintings his mother used to show him in her antique books their ancestors had brought onto the Ark with them. He longed to watch the sun set behind the darkened tree tops, small spaces in between the trees illuminating red from the descending sun. 

But Bellamy had learned early on that they were up there for the long run. 5 years at a minimum, not to mention however long they would need to prepare the dropship to withstand re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. And this was all considering they even survived, the ship had been abandoned for six months before they returned, the ship hadn’t been well managed in that time seeing as there was nobody there to manage it, meaning anything could wrong at any given time. The oxygen supply could suddenly cut, or the algae production could fail or even the ship could loose power completely and they’d be trapped inside. 

But they remained in high hopes, that tiniest bit of faith getting them through the darkest days. The days where it felt as if they couldn’t go on. 

Luckily for them, today was one of those good days. Bellamy had slept in late again, the small alarm clock he had salvaged from another part of the ring read 11:17. Crap. Raven would kill him, but it was worth the extra sleep, he sure as hell needed it.   
He threw on yesterdays clothes and headed for the old council room with the large panel of screens displaying absolutely nothing. Upon entering he saw the pile of sheets on the table in the middle and blueprints and notes scattered on various parts of the glossy metal finish of the table. At the head of it sat Raven, her eyes trained on a sheet of equations Bellamy didn’t even want to look at. A pencil was tucked behind her ears as she fiddled with a loose strand of hair with her index finger. 6 years in a very confined space with someone, you noticed their habits. 

Raven looked up briefly, and nodded in his general direction. “You’re up early, sleeping beauty.” She remarked sarcastically. Bellamy rolled his eyes as he sat on the chair nearest Raven. He looked at her closely, she had large dark circles beneath her eyes, and a particularly noticeable smell emitting from the girl. 

“Did you even sleep last night? Or shower?” He inquired, an eyebrow raised.  
“No time.” She replied bluntly. 

Bellamy reached out and pulled her sheet away from her, “You do realise you don’t have to work every waking hour of the day, right?” 

Raven scowled, “Not unless you want to go back to Earth,” She snatched the paper back, “I’m almost there, Bellamy, in a couple of months we could be ready. We could go home.” She sighed as she ran a hand through her hair. 

Bellamy smiled, one that didn’t quite reach his eyes, “Just don’t kill yourself trying to do it, okay?” 

Raven returned the half-hearted smile as she removed the pencil from behind her ear and began to scrawl illegible numbers on any spare gaps on the paper. Her brows furrowed together as she calculated the impossible maths.   
“I’ll get you something from the algae farm.” Bellamy offered, already heading out of the door.   
It took him maybe five minutes to get to the farm, as he opened the doors he found Monty sitting with Murphy and Harper, talking amongst themselves. 

Monty looked up, “Hey.” He greeted.  
Bellamy walked over to the three and sat down with them, “Where’s Emori and Echo?” He asked.   
“I don’t know about Echo, but Emori’s still sleeping.” Murphy answered, leaning forward in his chair.   
Bellamy sighed and ran a hand through his hair, “Ravens working herself to death.” He looked around at his friends, “Have you seen how she is lately.”  
Harper nodded slowly, “She just wants to go home.” She looked at Monty thoughtfully, “We all do.”   
“That won’t be for a long while though.” Murphy said dismissively, “I went down to the ship yesterday just to see how everything was coming along and I noticed how there hadn’t really been much going on in it for about three weeks.”   
“It’s a lot of work for one person to do.” Commented Monty sympathetically.   
“She’ll get us down there.” Bellamy said firmly, standing up. “I know she will.”   
As if on cue, Raven burst in through the double doors of the farm, that wild childlike look of excitement on her face. Her chest was heaving, and her leg must have killed her from running all the way. 

“Guys, I found it!” She gushed, walking forward and brandishing a handful of sheets, “I worked out what we need to do to go home! I figured out the coordinates!” 

Bellamy frowned, “Are you sure?”

“No, Blake, surprise! It’s all a joke. Yes, I’m sure.” She snapped. 

Raven had the widest smile on her face as her eyes swooped from one person to the other. “We can go home.”


	2. The Ground...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We check in with Clarke and Madi on the ground, and just see where they are right now, it's basically all introductions of some of the characters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all the hits and kudos' on the first chapter, it really means a lot, I hope you guys will enjoy the rest of the fanfiction when it is all released.

Clarke

Clarke sat on the ground against a mossy tree, staring up at the sky. It was so blue, it was hard to believe for five years straight it had been nothing but orange from the radiation from the death wave.

 

There were even signs of life coming back to the forest where the lab was, the birds chirping every morning was something she knew she would never grow tired of. Clarke shut her eyes, letting the soft breeze of the early morning wash over her. She almost forgot the dark, nagging worry in the back of her mind. The Eligius ship. Prisoner transport. 

 

It had disappeared about a week after it entered Earth’s atmosphere, it hadn’t done anything, it landed there and not a single thing happened. No doors opened, and nobody came out. For some sinister reason, this worried Clarke even more. Not for herself, but for Madi.   
Madi didn’t understand that people could be evil, no matter how many times Clarke reminded the little night blood of this, the only way she could come to understand was to see the evil. 

 

Clarke didn’t want that either.

 

But Clarke had told Madi how some people did dreadful things for noble causes, but Clarke had let herself wonder if she was telling the girl this to somehow justify all the deaths she had caused. She didn’t earn the title Wanheda for nothing.   
She still had nightmares about it, she regretted every death yet, would do it again in a heartbeat if necessary. Naturally, the deaths she felt the most guilt for were the ones of those she loved the most. Namely, Lexa. 

 

It was her fault, she couldn’t say why but Clarke knew it was her, she was too weak to save the woman she loved. She let her bleed out on that bed while Clarke stood there, helpless. She had never felt more pathetic in her life. It wasn’t just Lexa who she let down, there was Lincoln, Jasper, Wells, Finn, Luna, Anya, Maya and her father, Jake. There were more, but Clarke had spent too many nights remembering their names and faces and weeping over them. 

 

Now, 6 years later, she was a new person. Stronger, more determined. Every little thing she did now was for Madi. Clarke smiled at the thought of Madi meeting her friends, the ones she had come to understand as heroes. And Clarke now saw the similarities between her and Bellamy, how they did everything in the interest of one person who meant everything to them. 

 

Bellamy. That reminded her. Clarke got up from her sitting position and moved towards the rover, carefully hidden behind a particularly dense area of trees. She tugged open the stiff doors and let the morning light flood the back of the rover. 

 

Madi was lying in a bundle of duvets and pillows, her body in a foetal position. The girl groaned and rolled onto her stomach, shielding herself from the light. Clarke stepped into the rover, jostling it slightly as she went for the small satellite dish and radio in the back. She backed out of the rover, being careful to not tread on Madi.   
“I’ll be back for your lessons soon, little natblida.” Clarke teased.

 

This earned a cry in protest from Madi, who pulled her blankets over her head and repositioned herself to sprawl out on the rover floor.   
Clarke, smiled and shook her head. She jumped out of the rover and pushed the rover doors shut with a grunt. Radio and satellite in hand she headed for an open patch a couple of feet from the rover, she sat down on a rather sloped tree stump and set up her items around her.   
She gripped the radio tightly in one hand, holding it to her face. She pondered for a moment. Was it worth it? Could they even hear her? Were they still alive? 

 

Clarke shook the ideas from her mind, they were alive. She knew it.

 

She clicked the button on the radio, announcing to her it was online. She looked around at the sky, hopeful. Not to her surprise, nothing happened. 

 

“Bellamy.” She spoke into the radio. “That ship has been gone for two weeks now, I think it’ll come back though.” She dropped her head into her free hand. “Why can’t you come back?” She murmured quietly into the radio. 

 

“Anyways,” She continued with a false cheerfulness to her voice, “I’m going to teach Madi how to use a knife today, God knows how it’ll go,” She laughed, “I was never that good with anything but a gun, you know that. I think we’ll go to Polis again soon, I haven’t been in about two months, maybe something has changed.” Clarke looked up again, “Even if I can’t get them out, I think we both know they’ll find a way, Octavia is the strongest person I know. I- “Clarke’s sentence was cut short by sound of Madi calling her name.   
She immediately let go of the radio and teared towards the rover, her hand on her gun that was strapped to her leg.

 

“Madi?!” Clarke called.

Madi was standing outside of the rover, her face stricken white. 

Clarke rushed to Madi, she grabbed a hold of her face, inspecting every aspect of her for any abrasions. 

“Are you okay? What happened?” Clarke demanded, releasing Madi’s face and instead grabbing her hands. 

“I-I heard something,” Madi stammered, pointing to her right, “Over there.” 

Clarke glanced towards where Madi was pointing, “Stay here, and get into the rover if I tell you to, okay?” Clarke removed her gun from the holster of her leg, gripping it tightly and pointed it directly in front her. She walked slowly, one foot in front of the other. Could it be the Eligius people? No, she would have heard their ship land. Or maybe they had landed a while away and were on foot. 

 

Whoever it was, Clarke was ready to kill. She edged closer to the patch of trees where the noise was. She stopped at the edge, peering in. Her eyes scrambling to find something. 

 

The sound of a twig snapping caused Clarke to let out a small scream, the anticipation broken by the noise startled her. She fired blindly into the woods, three shots ringing out for miles. She ran into the woods and followed the sounds that followed the gunshots. She found herself in a small open space, facing a deer. 

 

Clarke relaxed, the deer had obviously been lurking and had scared Madi, Clarke put the gun away in the holster and slowly made her way closer to the deer, holding a hand out. How had the deer survived Praimfaya? She looked closer, she realised most of its fur had burned away, revealing pink burn marks on it’s bare skin. The deer had probably taken shelter somewhere when the death wave hit, and with it’s ancestors having lived on a radiated Earth for so long had probably made it easy for the deer to adapt to prominent levels of radiation. Like a night blood. 

 

Clarke dared to step closer, her fingers reaching out, but the deer’s ears pricked, and it bounded away, sending dirt flying up behind it. Clarke straightened up and sighed, watching the deer disappear into the depths of the woods. She turned and headed back the way she came, looking to make sure Madi hadn’t followed her into the woods. 

 

She emerged and found Madi right where she had told her to stay.

“What was it?” The young girl asked, still holding her gun, a look of worry and fear plastered onto her face.

“It was just a deer, Madi.” Clarke smiled at her.

Madi nodded, clearly relaxed now and ambled around to the passenger seat at the front of the rover. Clarke paced back to the stump where she had left her radio and satellite. 

She picked them up, folding away the satellite and carried them back to the rover. She pulled open the rover doors with a considerable amount of effort, and threw the radio and satellite inside. She slammed the door shut and joined Madi at the front seats of the rover.   
She sat in front of the steering wheel, she fished the car keys from her pocket and inserted the keys into the ignition, kickstarting the rover with a sudden jolt of the engine. Clarke turned to Madi, “No lessons today, I’ve decided.” Clarke says, backing out of their position.  
“I thought you were going to teach me to use a knife?” Madi asked, leaning against the door of the rover. Clarke bit her lip and looked straight ahead as she drove towards the lab. “You don’t need to learn right now, Madi.” She turned the steering wheel to swerve a large tree, “Besides, I thought you didn’t want any lessons today?” 

“But I thought you wanted me to know in case the ship comes back.”

Clarke gripped the wheel tighter, “You won’t need to know.” She reached a hand out to Madi and squeezed hers. “I won’t ever let them hurt you.” Clarke was unsure, she knew they would come back eventually, but there was only one of her. She didn’t even know if her friends would come back. 

 

Clarke looked straight ahead out of the windshield, the sun sparkling through the glass, she looked up at the sky again. One day, she thought, one day they would come back.


	3. What lies beneath...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We see how Octavia stands with disobedience in her bunker and what she plans to do to get her people out of the bunker.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry these past three chapters have been so short but I swear this is like three and a half pages worth of writing. I will try to make the future chapters longer and better! xxx

Octavia

Octavia stormed through the corridors of the bunker, opening doors with such force they slammed against the walls behind them. Her breathing was heavy, her sword gripped tightly in her hand.

She could already hear the yells and screams coming from inside the main area in the bunker. The two trikru guards standing outside opened the two heavy doors, allowing Octavia in. There was blood splattered on the floor and the walls, people were fighting with whatever they could find. Whether that was guns, knives, swords, bats, anything. Bodies lay strewn across the floor, one that caught Octavia’s eye was a teenage boy, his throat slit, and his body had practically been bled bone dry.

“ENOUGH!” Octavia screamed, whacking her sword against a metal pipe, the sound rung out among the room. She looked around the room, furious. People stood still, covered in blood, staring at Octavia. 

“What the hell is going on!” She growled, disturbingly calm. They looked like animals standing there, rage painted onto their faces. “For 6 years we have lived here,” She bellowed and with a hint of sarcasm she continued, “Relatively peacefully.” She paced slowly, surveying the large crowd of people. “And you know the consequences for disturbing the peace.” She stopped abruptly. She looked over at Indra, who had followed her all the way here and had the same disappointed look on her face. Octavia nodded at her and Indra left, her footsteps echoing. She turned and slammed the heavy metal doors shut. Their sound was deafening. 

Octavia looked around at her people darkly. “Who started this?” She asked calmly. Octavia menacingly twisted her sword around in her hand, scanning the crowd of people who all appeared to be staring at the ground. Unwilling to meet her penetrative gaze. 

“I did.” A deep voice chimed from the back of the crowd on the stairs. Octavia nodded to her two azgeda body guards who headed for where the voice came from. Within a matter of seconds, they were dragging a rather tall man with a defiant look on his face down the stairs. His face was bloodied and bruised.  
The two guards brought him in front of Octavia and forced him to kneel. The man winced as his knees hit the hard ground. Octavia glared at the man and brought her sword up to rest beneath his chin, gently pressing into the skin. “Why?” She inquired.  
The man straightened his back, his eyes trained on hers. “Because we’re sick of this.” He swallowed, obviously nervous, “We don’t want to be locked up like this anymore…Like we’re on the Ark.” He spat vindictively. Octavia sneered, “You’re skaikru then? I should have known.” 

The man glared at her, “Aren’t you forgetting that you are skaikru too?” 

Octavia felt the pit of rage inside her stomach boiling again, she was barely containable, she pressed the sword harder under his chin. This time she drew blood. “What. Did. You. Say?” She uttered darkly. 

The man was practically shaking, his voice this time round was less confident, “I-I said, you’re skaikru too.” 

“I AM NOT!” Octavia screamed, “I BELONG TO NO CLAN BUT THIS!” She gestured to the people in the room with them. “I AM NOT A PART OF THE PEOPLE WHO FORBADE MY EXISTENCE, WHO KILLED MY MOTHER!” She was physically shaking, “And you…You dare…” She trailed off, her eyes glazed over, she stepped back pulling her sword away but keeping a firm hold. 

“Let this be a lesson to all of you…” She took a glance of the room in one fell swoop and turned back to the man. His eyes widened as Octavia swung her sword effortlessly, it glided through the air and made a clean slice through his neck. Screams erupted from around all corners of the hall. His blood overflowed the small line in his neck, cascading down his front. His head fell clean off and the rest of his body followed in it’s wake. 

“One life.” She breathed, staring at the body of the boy who couldn’t have been more than sixteen on the ground. “For the many others who were killed here today because of him.” She pointer her sword at the man she killed. With that she turned and stormed out of the hall to find Indra waiting outside, she looked at Octavia solemnly and without a word, followed the brunette down the corridor back to the head office.

“Do you think killing the man was right?” Indra finally asked as soon as the door shut behind them in the office. Octavia didn’t have time for this, she sighed and leant against the desk. “I don’t know.” She rubbed her eyes, and noticed her hands had blood on them. 

“I can’t let them see me as weak.” Octavia insisted.

“No, you can’t.” Indra agreed, “But that wasn’t what this was today, this was you letting your emotions get the better of you.” 

Octavia spun around the look at Indra, she opened her mouth to argue but Indra silenced her with a gesture of her hand. “Don’t argue with me on this, Octavia, I have been your advisor and friend for six years. I know what gets to you.” 

No sooner than Indra finished talking, the door to the office flung upon and Kane and Abby thundered in. Kane was fuming, he just stared at Octavia. His words failed him a couple of times before he managed to talk, “What the hell was that?!” Octavia simply stared back, “Leadership.” She retorted. Abby shook her head, and folded her arms as she looked at Octavia with pure disappointment, “You can’t just execute people like that without a trial or- “. Octavia cut her off with an ironic laugh, “Funny that, because I seem to remember that happening on the Ark.” 

“Octavia this is different, we aren’t on the Ark.” 

“I know! But people were killed there. And I don’t care if he was the one who started it either, the price was paid for the lives lost there! In fact, I let them off quite easily. One death for at least twenty!” 

Octavia headed for the chair behind the desk and let herself collapse in it. She wished it would just absorb her and let her sink into it, so she didn’t have to deal with the responsibilities of leadership. She shut her eyes, she was so tired. Nobody said anything for a while before Octavia decided to break the silence. “The man, the one who I killed, he said it was like we were on the Ark again.” She opened her eyes and looked at Kane pleadingly, “Is it?”.

Kane sighed sympathetically and walked over the Octavia, he perched on the edge of the desk. “In what world would you ever let this place become the new ark?” He smiled, “You have more of a reason to make it your own than anyone else here, you were so hard done by. We’re sorry for that.”

Abby joined them, reaching down and taking Octavia’s hands, in the last six years Octavia had a more mother-and-daughter relationship with Abby since Clarke wasn’t here. “And for the record,” Abby began, releasing Octavia’s hands and pushing her hair back, “This is nothing like the Ark.”  
It was that kind of assurance that reinforced Octavia’s belief in herself, that she could lead these people back to the surface. Octavia cleared her throat, “Maybe we should check on our supplies.” She turned to look up at Abby, “How are we for medical supplies?” Abby joined Kane on the desk and leant back. “For now, we’re fine. In fact, the hospital has become pretty lonely with nobody to treat.” Octavia gave a small smile, “Well, I’d say you’ll have your hands busy tonight.” 

Octavia leant back in her chair, “Can I be alone for a while? I need to clear my head.” She spoke. Her three advisors got up and left her alone in the office. The quiet was calming after being in the hall full of screaming people. She observed her desk, it was an organised mess or just a mess, as Abby called it. Her files were in a messy stack on the side to be painfully looked through later. Leading people was a lot more than making sure everyone survived. They had to evenly distribute food and water to all 1200 people in the bunker. Medical supplies had to be rationed. They even offered classes in trigedasleng for people who only spoke English, and vice versa. Not everything went the way Octavia hoped, that wasn’t the only public execution to happen down here, granted they weren’t common but they weren’t rare either.   
Octavia leant forward and rested her head on the desk, she stared at the wall ahead, the plans for their escape from the bunker had been hung there from the start. She lifted her head and turned to look at the small radio on the desk. She hadn’t used it in months, perhaps she’d been too afraid to. Too afraid to never get a reply from Bellamy. Afraid she’d never see him again.   
No. Don’t think like that, she told herself. 

She pulled the radio towards her, holding it away from her face, gathering the courage. No. She threw it down. Even if he was there how could he hear her? He was in space and she was underground. She didn’t want to put herself through the panic of not talking to him. She missed him, so much so she cried at night thinking of the times when they were children and he looked after her.   
She missed those times. 

She even missed being the girl under the floor. 

She didn’t have responsibilities. 

She didn’t have the rest of humanity depending on her every single day. 

Octavia jumped when she heard a gentle knock come from the door. She straightened up, tucking any loose strands of hair behind her ears, “Enter,” The door opened, allowing the person in, his figure silhouetted from the bright lights of the bunker behind him. He turned and shut the door hastily. Octavia slumped down in the chair, it was Jaha. And he did not look pleased.

“I don’t even know what to say.” He shook his head in a patronising way that rather bothered Octavia.  
“Then don’t say anything.” She answered back. 

“You publicly executed a man from your own clan on the spot in front of hundreds.”

“I will tell you what I told him, Jaha.” She stood up, putting her hands on the desk, “I am not part of your clan.” 

Jaha waved her away, “That doesn’t matter, what matters is you need to learn how to get your emotions under control! Nobody will respect you if they know your weaknesses.”

Octavia had had enough, she stormed around the desk and walked right up to Jaha, getting in his face. “Don’t tell me how to lead my people, I’m their leader, remember? Not you, not anymore.” 

“I’m only trying to help. I want what’s best for everyone down there. They just want to leave.” 

“And you think I don’t want to leave?” Octavia hissed through gritted teeth. 

“Of course I don’t.” Jaha was remaining irritatingly calm. 

Octavia gave in, she stepped away from Jaha, “We will go back up, when we can. I promise, we-we just need to find a way to dig ourselves out. We’ll assemble a team to try and excavate the rubble.” 

Jaha looked at her as if she were a child, she thought he was going to say something against what Octavia had suggested. Instead he agreed. “Okay, I’ll get Abby, Kane and Indra.”, he began to head for the door.  
Octavia nodded at Jaha, “However long it takes, it’ll be worth it.” He nodded and left, shutting the door behind him. 

 

It would be worth it. It would be, wouldn’t it?


	4. Proditione...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raven is attacked by one of the space kru and essentially leaves them with no hope for getting back onto the ground.

Raven

The ring had been crazy lately. Ever since Raven finally worked out the landing coordinates, there had been a mad scramble to prepare themselves for going home. Everyone seemed to be in good spirits despite how stressful the whole situation was. Raven had checked the interior and exterior of the ship several times, making sure nothing would go wrong during re-entry. Thing was, she had no way of knowing it would all go smoothly. The ship was old. It was developed before the first apocalypse well over a hundred years ago, this thing could break apart at any time. 

She had never told anyone that, but did it really need saying? 

Nobody was more eager to help than Bellamy, the prospect of seeing his sister once again had rekindled a fire within him that had died out a long time ago. He ran about the ring doing whatever Raven told him to do. Quite frankly, she found it hilarious. 

She had barely found any time to eat or sleep, every night it was a different person coming to wrench her away from her workbench for just 30 minutes to eat. That put Raven in a bad mood. She would have time to eat on the ground, but not here. Work was never ending. But it gave her something to do and was a million times better than waiting around for something interesting to happen. 

Raven sat at her workbench which also doubled as her bedroom. She was wearing the same clothes she’d had on for the past week. She was desperate to finish, but she was only part of the way there. She gathered her tools and dumped them into the box by her desk. She got up and with the toolbox in hand, sprinted to where they had the ship. 

Raven stopped outside the room, pausing to open the airlock doors that led into the room. Those doors were just a precaution. Her finger hovered over the open button when she heard a crash coming from inside. Her brows furrowed, she moved to the glass of the door and pressed herself up against the glass, trying to get a glimpse into the pitch-black room. The light from the corridor made it hard to see in. She heard more crashes, sounds of thuds coming from inside.

Raven started to panic, what the hell was going on? She clumsily pressed the open button and practically fell inside, dropping all her tools on floor. 

“Shit.” She muttered under breath, dropping down to pick them up. She stopped when she heard movement from the back of the room, she left the tools where they were and slowly stood up, being careful to not make a sound. Gradually, she made her way back towards the door, where the light switches were. She got close enough and without looking away she reached her fingers out. She desperately felt for the switch and when she found it she switched it on quicker than she could register what she was doing. 

She scanned the whole room, she ran around checking everywhere, where had the noise come from? Raven heard a small sound behind her and before she could turn around she was on the ground, her head throbbing and black spots danced around her eyes. She’d been hit with something.  
She rolled herself around, grunting with effort to see a figure running madly towards the door. Her vision was blurry, but it came into focus just before the lights went off.   
She saw who it was. The glow from the fluorescent overhead lights gave her all the help she needed to see who attacked her.

She couldn’t believe it.

It was Echo.

Then everything went black.

 

Raven woke up in the dark. The pain in her head was there, but it was less prominent. She felt around in the dark, dragging herself in the way of the door. She knew her way around here so well she didn’t need to see. Reaching out she felt the cold glass of the now shut doors, so that meant the lights would be just to the left and a little way up. Raven pulled herself onto her knees, groaning. She ran her hand up the wall and found the switch, she pulled on it, letting herself fall as the lights turned on. 

Raven decided her head felt better with the lights off. 

She looked around at the workshop, the benches had been kicked over, plans had been thrown around the floor and ripped up. The shelves had been pulled off the walls. But that wasn’t the worse thing. Raven looked up at the ship. Echo had used something to smash in the ship, she had broken the glass and Raven managed to peer into the broken open door and see the control panel ruined.  
Raven felt her heartbeat in her ears. She was so angry she couldn’t begin the understand how she felt. She wanted to kill Echo. She wanted to whack her head repeatedly on the ground until she was begging for her life. 

All her demanding work. 6 years of it, had been for nothing.

“NO!” She screamed, her screams turned to cries and wails, she banged against the walls with her fists and threw the discarded tools around the room. She eventually curled up into a ball and lay there crying, why had Echo done this? What had she done to make Echo hate her so much?

“Oh my god.”

Raven looked up through teary eyes. Her head still throbbing. Bellamy stood in the doorway of the workshop, his hands hanging uselessly by his sides. He looked around the room in disbelief, then he looked at Raven, then back at the ship. 

“You’re bleeding.” He said matter-of-factly in a deadpan voice, she supposed it was from the shock and disbelief of what had just happened.   
Wait, Bleeding? Raven touched the back of her head and pulled her hand away, sure enough her hand was covered in bright red blood. 

“Did-did you do this?” Bellamy looked down at her.

Raven scoffed, “What do you mean? You think I threw away our only chance on getting down to Earth?”

Bellamy shifted, “I’m sorry, I know it wasn’t you. Who was it, do you know?”

“Yeah…I know who did this,” She sneered, “Echo.”

Raven got up, groaning as she shifted her whole-body weight onto her bad leg. She then hastened down the corridors of the ring to find Echo with Bellamy. 

“She whacked me on the head with something, I don’t know what with though.” She winced as she touched the back of her head. The two almost collided with Murphy who was strolling almost leisurely down the halls. “Watch where you’re going, guys.” He huffed, he looked down at Raven’s hand. “Whose blood is that?” He asked, an eyebrow raised.

“Mine.” Answered Raven, “You can thank Echo for that.”

“Wait, she hit you?” Murphy sounded unsure.

“Yes, she did, now are you coming with us or not to find her?” Bellamy chimed in, clearly agitated, “She might have just blown our chances of getting back down to Earth.”

“Might?!” Raven half laughed, and half screeched, “She did. We’re screwed.” 

“Wait, what?” Murphy demanded. 

“We’ll explain later.” Raven sighed, already walking. The two men followed her in suit. 

They informed the others who happened to be sitting together in their eating area. Now everyone was looking for Echo. They all called her name, they all wanted to get a hold of her, they all hoped for her sake she wasn’t found by Raven, who would most likely beat the living shit out of her. Raven was determined to find her though, she stormed through halls, kicking open doors and screaming Echo’s name. In the corner of Raven’s eye, she saw something move in a tall cabinet in one of the prison cells in the skybox. She marched towards the cabinet and pulled the doors so ferociously, she pulled them clean off. 

She found Echo standing there, an unpleasant look on her face but not even her best attempt at a poker face could hide the fear she had for Raven. Raven yanked her out of the cabinet and slammed her against the wall so hard Echo let out a cry. “Why?” She hissed, Echo said nothing, refusing to meet Raven’s eye. This just angered the woman more. She pulled Echo from the wall and threw her onto ground. Raven limped over and stood over Echo, she was damn near about to stamp her face in. Before she could do anything, Echo had twisted around and knocked Raven’s legs from under her, letting her crash on the floor, flat on her back. She groaned, the wind knocked out of her. 

“Stop.” She spluttered, as Echo got up and punched Raven’s head to the ground.

Raven’s head felt like a drum, the throbbing and the banging and the aching was too much. She put her arms up to shield herself, but Echo had anticipated that and kicked Raven’s bad leg with as much velocity and momentum possible.

Raven let out an astonishing, blood-curdling scream that bounced off the walls, she was sure her friends had heard it. It even stunned Echo, the pain was blinding. It was the same as when A.L.I.E had brought back all her painful memories, all rushing in at once, completely overtaking her. Raven rolled on the floor, her vision was almost like a flashing light, on and off, on and off. 

The first person to get there was Emori, who took one look at Raven on the floor and the launched herself at Echo, screaming and scratching. The two grounders fought tirelessly at each other before everyone else caught up, Monty carrying a sedative. Harper dragged Raven as carefully as she could out of the cell and into the hall where she tried to keep Raven awake. The others restrained and held down a screaming Echo as Monty plunged the syringe into her neck, she writhed a few times more until her eyes rolled back into her head and she fell unconscious. 

They breathed a sigh of relief. The three men plus Emori left the unconscious Echo in the cell, locking her in. They all stood over Raven, the left side of her face was purple from bruises and her eyes kept fluttering open and shut again and again. 

The ship was ruined, and their mechanic was out. 

The five of them exchanged anxious looks. 

They were stuck. 

They weren’t going anywhere.


	5. End of an era, beginning of a legacy...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke is reunited with her friends and gets a glimpse of the three mysterious people on the Eligius ship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this kind of sounds like the end of the fanfiction but I promise you it's not, we are literally at the beginning and I'll get around to how space kru got to be on the eligius ship after the next chapter :) xxx GoldenFreckles

Clarke

The lab had become a place of solace and peace for Clarke. Every available square inch of the lab walls was filled with drawings of everyone who meant anything to her. Madi had learnt the names that matched every face in the pictures and could recite it as she could recite the alphabet. Clarke had spent many nights with her back against the counters facing the wall with the largest collection of drawings, she regarded each one studiously. Mentally tweaking the pictures to make them more like the real thing. Only thing was, they weren’t real. 

There was one-night Clarke would never forget, it was five months after her friends had left her to go up to the ring. She had only drawn them. Nobody else. At the centre of the small display of drawings was Bellamy’s picture. She had pulled it off the wall and threw it onto the ground, crying. She screamed at it, and held it to her chest, as close to her heart as he could be.

“Why did you leave me here, Bell?” She screamed at nothing.

“I hate you! I hate you!” She fell on the floor, screaming out. The floor had been unsympathetic and unforgiving, yet she lay down on it, Bellamy’s picture tucked under face, tears slowly rolling off her nose and onto the crumple paper. “Please…Come back to me…”. 

She had sat up, her legs tucked beneath her chin, her eyes heavy with fatigue, her nose stuffed from crying and her throat was sore from screaming her sorrows away. She leant over, picking the picture up from the ground. She untucked her legs and crossed them, she gently laid the picture on her lap. 

Clarke had traced all his features lightly with her finger.  
Imagining them as if they were real, as if he were there. 

“May we meet again…” She had told his picture, she tucked it away and put it in her jacket. It had been there since, never on the wall. Always with her. 

Over time, the wall filled with pictures of everyone. She had drawn them as she remembered them, from times that were special to her. She drew Lexa as she was just before she died, stripped down to her core, it was the real Lexa. 

She drew her mother from a memory on the Ark, she drew her with her father. They were smiling, Clarke was only a child when this happened, she’d remembered it ever since. Her parents were sitting on the couch together, talking and laughing. Clarke had watched from the door, a girl of only eight years, nobody knew she’d grow to be the ‘Commander of Death’.

She drew Octavia with Lincoln, the only time she’d ever seen Octavia truly happy. She drew Raven working on one of her machines, a smile as wide as the Earth on her face. She drew Murphy with Emori in the kitchen from the mansion, Monty and Harper, Jasper with his moonshine, she drew Wells from one of their routine chess matches. She drew Finn from that time in the bunker they found together. Every time she drew someone she felt a sense of sinking, sinking back into her cave of depression and loneliness. 

But then there was Madi, the first time Clarke had drawn her, Madi had been five. She was reserved and quiet, it took her a while to warm up to Clarke, but when she did it made Clarke feel a bit more wanted. 

She drew Madi every year, sometimes Clarke liked to look at the drawings and see the changes between the different drawings, underneath, she was still the same little girl she found all those years ago. 

Now, Clarke and Madi walked into the bunker, their backs and shoulders laden with bags and guns from their trip to collect food. They had been moderately successful. The deer incident had been a week ago. Madi was visibly struggling to carry the bags. She dropped to her knees and gently eased the items onto the floor. She got up and turned around to face Clarke, who herself was bucking under the weight. She dropped them next to where Madi had put hers.  
Madi hoisted herself onto the counter and swung her legs wildly beneath the ledge, “So, I was wondering…” Madi was smiling mischievously, “If I could go and practice my target shooting?”  
She gave Clarke the brightest most persuasive smile she could possibly manage. Clarke shot a wry smile at Madi, “Go on.” She watched as Madi ran off to get her gun. “Be careful, please!” Clarke called after the girl darting towards the door, gun in hand. 

Clarke spent the next hour or so selecting different drawings and refining them, adding extra shading or details she thought made it better. Occasionally she took out the drawing of Bellamy, it was worn and old. She stroked his face with her thumb, a small smile erupting on her face. 

Suddenly, Madi burst into the bunker calling for Clarke, she ran to her, panic etched into her face. Clarke hastily tucked the picture back into her pocket and stood up to catch Madi. Madi threw herself into Clarke.  
She was spurting so many words Clarke couldn’t even register what she was saying. “Madi. Madi! Slow down! What happened?”  
Madi was trembling, the scared little five-year-old was back, not the brave eleven-year-old she had become.

“The ship. It’s back.”

Clarke’s heart dropped, the nausea rose from her stomach to her throat. Her palms began to sweat, and her mind ran a blank. She didn’t know what to do. She swallowed and tried to regain control of her composure. Clarke steadied her breathing, trying to calm herself down. 

She grabbed Madi’s shoulders, “I need you to help me, Madi.” Clarke said in the calmest voice she could muster, and it wasn’t very good. 

“Anything, Clarke.”

“I need you to stay here. I need you to not open the bunker doors for anyone who isn’t me.”

“But I- “

“No buts. Just do as I say.”

“What if you don’t come back?” 

Clarke tried to smile, but it failed miserably, “I will.”

With that, Clarke took off running towards the bunker doors, grabbing her gun and throwing it over her shoulder. She pulled open the bunker doors slowly with an immense amount of effort and shut them right after. She saw in the sky the trail of smoke where the ship had descended. Her heart racing, she bounded towards the ship, jumping over logs and dips in the ground. She knew this place by heart. The line of smoke drew lower and lower towards the ground, so close. She knew whoever these people were, they were going to have to be prepared for her. 

Then she saw it.

The ship was on the ground, it had burnt the ground it landed on. It hadn’t done that last time. Clarke crouched down behind a bush, there was a convenient gap in the middle allowing her to see the ship. 

Then the doors opened. 

The automated systems opened slowly, revealing bright lights inside of the ship. Clarke strained her eyes, desperate for a closer look, but she wasn’t willing to compromise her safety for that. Clarke’s heart skipped a beat when a figure appeared in the door, he walked down the ramp that had now settled on the dry, dead ground. He walked slowly, as if he were admiring everything. What was there to admire? Lucky for Clarke she wasn’t too far away, she was close enough she could kind of distinguish his facial features. He had dark hair, and a pale face. She guessed his eyes were dark too, but she couldn’t tell. She had no clue who he was. 

Two more figures appeared at the door, this time she could tell one was a woman. As the two-people stepped out onto the ramp she could tell what they looked like. The woman had medium brown hair, she was quite pale too, and she wasn’t particularly tall. The man behind her had darker skin and dark hair cut quite short, his height rested somewhere in the middle of the woman and the other man.  
The three stood there for a couple of minutes, they weren’t moving. Clarke guessed they were talking, eventually, the taller man turned to the shorter and obviously told him to go back into the ship as he took off running up the ramp. Maybe they were leaving?  
Clarke repositioned herself to be ready to run back to the bunker, but couldn’t peel her eyes away from the ship. The man returned, only this time a group of people followed him. One of the people in the group was carrying the other. 

Clarke felt as if all the air from her lungs had been sucked away. 

She knew those people. 

She knew the man carrying the other person.

Bellamy.

Clarke opened her mouth to yell, but she clamped her own hand over her mouth to stop herself. Her heart was going crazy, tears formed at her eyes. She looked at Bellamy and she couldn’t look away. 

He looked different, he looked older, older than he was. He had the same hair but only now he had facial hair too. Still, he could be an old man with scars all over his face and Clarke would recognise him in a heartbeat. He looked concerned. Clarke glanced down at the person he was holding and realised it was Raven. Clarke grew scared, was she dead? She could see the mechanic had bruises all over the left side of her face and she wasn’t moving, she couldn't be...Clarke couldn't even think of the word without shuddering.

Stop thinking like that! 

Clarke looked at the other group members and that wide smile emerged again, they were all there. All okay. Clarke felt as if the greatest weight had been lifted from her chest. 

The three strangers turned to her friends, the leader of their little trio, the tall man, appeared to be speaking to Bellamy. Of course, Clarke grinned to herself, who else would lead them?

The three walked back up the ramp, shouldering past Murphy and Emori who still stood on it. They walked down the ramp, giving the three filthy looks. The seven stood around the bottom of the ramp and watched it retreat into the ship. They all took a few steps back as the ships engine came to life with a roar. The ship elevated, the engines whirring and thundering. The ship rose up into the clouds and shot off up into the stratosphere, disappearing. 

They were left in the quiet. Clarke staring at her friends. She was short of breath, she wanted to stand up, to go to them. Or should she go back to Madi, but nothing could prevent a wide smile from being plastered on her face. 

Her legs were shaking as she rose from behind the bush, her breathing was shaky as she stepped out from behind. She walked slowly towards the open field where they stood. Clarke emerged from the trees, the gentle summer breeze caressing her face, tears streamed down her cheeks as she gazed at the people she hadn’t seen in 6 years. 

Unnoticed, she watched as Bellamy lay Raven down on the ground, Clarke felt relief when she saw Raven’s head move. She watched with anticipation as Bellamy stood up and turned around, he stopped as soon as he faced her. She watched as his mouth opened, then closed.  
She saw his mouth say something, but with no sound.

“Clarke.”

Bellamy broke into a run, as did Clarke. The others turned around to see what Bellamy was running to. Harper clapped her hands to her mouth, slightly knocking into Monty who stared wide-eyed at Clarke. Emori grabbed Murphy’s hand and Echo stood facing Clarke from the back of the crowd, looking dazed and confused.  
“Clarke!” She heard Bellamy yell. 

She ran faster, he was so close. After 6 years, she was almost there. 

The two crashed into each other with such force they were like stars colliding, it could have winded them both, but what did they care? Clarke threw her arms around Bellamy the same way she did when he returned from Mount Weather. Her heart pounded in her chest, she breathed him in. He was there. With her. Bellamy practically lifted her off the ground, swinging her around. She laughed out, wrapping her arms around him tighter, burying her face into his neck. She missed the way he felt around her, how well they fit together. This didn't feel real yet.

They pulled apart, Clarke was breathless. She looked up at Bellamy’s face, putting her hands lightly on the sides of his face, “You’re here…You’re actually here…”.

Bellamy couldn’t say anything but her name, he could only stare, “Clarke…”

“Shhh…” She said, “You came back…”.

“You’re alive…” Bellamy’s voice trailed off into nothingness. He felt his heart pounding in his ears, no, everywhere. He thought if it were possible his heart would burst out of his chest. Clarke smiled, warm and genuine. “It’s me, I’m real, Bellamy.”  
“I left you.” He looked down, years of guilt caught up with him and he was suddenly out of his depth, he wanted to break down, to hold her as tightly as he could and never let go. Her hand lightly grazed his face, and he looked into her eyes, they sparkled with life. “No.” She said, “You used your head, now you can use your heart.”

“Clarke?” 

Clarke pulled away from Bellamy and looked at the source of the voice, it was Murphy. She smiled wildly and threw her arms around her friend, and that’s how it went, she hugged everyone, even Echo. They all stared at her in awe. She was a ghost. A phantom yet, here she was, very much alive.

Bellamy’s hand found Clarke’s. She looked up at him, when her eyes met his, her heart swelled. His face looked concerned. He was worried about Raven, they all were. Clarke turned and walked towards her friend lying on the ground, she knelt beside her, gently brushing the hair from her face. 

Raven stirred, her eyes opening slightly. Her face contorted with confusion, then winced in pain.

“Clarke?” She croaked.

Clarke laughed breathlessly, “Yeah…” She smiled at the mechanic, “In the flesh.”

Raven gave a small, weak smile before her eyes dropped closed and her head rolled to the side. Clarke quickly pressed two fingers to Raven’s neck, her pulse was weak. She needed to get Raven proper medical attention, she could do that at the lab, but she didn’t have the rover, so the journey would be longer with Raven in this condition. She wasn’t in any condition to be carried across terrain like this.

“Who’s that?” Clarke heard Emori exclaim. Confused, Clarke swivelled in her position to see Madi standing by a tree at the edge of the field, a look of recognition on her face. Clarke sighed, what did she tell her. Clarke stood up and turned to Madi, “Get the medical equipment from the rover!” She called over to the girl, who nodded and turned, disappearing into the trees. Clarke turned back to Raven, beginning to inspect the injuries on her face. She felt a hand rest on her shoulder, she looked up, it was Bellamy. 

“Who was she?” He asked, looking back over his shoulder the way Madi went. 

“It’s a long story,” Clarke replied, “How did Raven get like this.”

Bellamy looked down and knelt beside Clarke, “It’s a long story.”.


	6. Familiar Foe...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy confronts Echo as to why she sabotaged the ship and attacked Raven. We are introduced to some new characters.

1 WEEK EARLIER

Bellamy

The past two days had been rough. Raven wasn’t showing any signs of coming around any time soon, they all took turns in watching Raven during the days and nights. Bellamy volunteered to watch her at night. He barely slept anyways, and if he did he had the nightmare.  
They were mainly about Clarke, he dreamt of being locked in a glass box, untouchable by Praimfaya. He was trapped within the box with Clarke on the other side, screaming and banging on the glass to no avail. Her skin blistering and burning down to the bone in front of Bellamy. 

He would scream and try and break through the glass every time to get to her, but it never worked, she would always be outside, and he would always be inside. That was the way it was. 

Her skin would peel off, revealing muscle and tissue, her screams didn’t stop, the sounds of fire and explosions and the screams of the dying would surround them and drown her voice out, lost in a sea of thousands. Bellamy would shut his eyes, hands pressed against the glass. The noises would stop, and he would hear the click of a trigger.

He always seems to look up to be greeted with the barrel of a gun staring him in the eye, no longer in the box but rather in Arkadia, by the ruins of the Ark. 

Clarke’s finger hooked around the trigger, her hand shaking. Tears of blood would run down her face, onto her clothes and onto the ground around them. 

“For my people.” Clarke would utter, and then she would pull the trigger.

That was when Bellamy would wake up, and would come to the bitter realisation he didn’t have the luxury of being dead and done with this shit. 

So there Bellamy sat, by Raven’s bed. None of them really knew what to do and nobody had gone to question Echo yet. Murphy and Monty had done the best they could to clean the workshop for when Raven woke up. 

Bellamy looked over at his sleeping friend, her chest rising and falling slightly. That was good, then. Bellamy reached over to the bedside cabinet and grabbed the bottle of moonshine made by Monty to get Bellamy through the night. He checked the clock on the wall, 3:36 AM.  
Bellamy breathed through his mouth slowly, letting off steam. It wasn’t that he didn’t like being there for Raven, it was the fact nobody was interrogating Echo that bothered him. Why had she destroyed the ship? Did she not want to go back down to Earth? Bellamy couldn’t think of a plausible reason. Defeated, he slumped further into his chair, swigging from the bottle. 

The aftertaste burned his tongue, he scrunched his face in disgust. It wasn’t bad moonshine to be fair, it was just the burning sensation than remained he hated. 

“Come on, Blake, how bad can it be?” 

Bellamy almost jumped in surprise. He looked down at Raven, she was awake, barely. He put the bottle down on the cabinet and moved his chair closer to her. 

“You took one hell of a hit, Reyes.” Bellamy remarked. 

“Yeah, well, I can take it.” Raven replied, her voice small and weak. 

“Explains why you’ve been out for two days straight.” Bellamy smirked, folding his arms. 

“Two days?" Raven asked, frowning. Bellamy nodded. Raven tore her gaze away from Bellamy and out of the small window on her right. Earth was just visible from here. Without looking at Bellamy, Raven spoke, “How is the ship?”.

Bellamy bit his lip, “We looked at the ship about ten times over, I mean, we don’t have your level of expertise, but we’d say its beyond repair…” Bellamy whispered. 

Raven sighed, “Louder, Blake, I took a pretty bad hit. My hearing isn’t exactly up to scratch right now.” 

Bellamy repeated himself and waited with bated breath for Raven’s reaction. She simply sighed, “I don’t understand why.” She just said sadly, she rolled onto her side, the bruised side facing the ceiling. Bellamy placed a hand on her shoulder, “You should get some sleep.”  
Raven made a noise of agreement, it took her maybe five minutes before she slipped back into a deep sleep, her breathing becoming heavier. Bellamy stood up quietly, took one last drink from the bottle and headed out of the door, dimming the lights in the room. He knew he shouldn’t leave her alone, he knew he’d be slated by the others, but he had to know why Echo had done it. 

He headed down the direction of the skybox where they locked Echo up, his footsteps heavy and loud as he walked, he really didn’t want to wake anyone. He finally reached the skybox, he opened the door that led to a whole couple of floors of cells. Echo’s was on the first floor of cells. He ambled along to hers and peered in through the glass window in the door and saw Echo standing away from the door, facing the window. 

He knocked on the door, Echo turned her head to see who it was. She saw Bellamy and turned back around to keep on looking out of the window. He opened the door quietly, letting himself in.

Echo kept her eyes straight ahead. Bellamy sat on the chair in the far corner, he stayed silent for a few moments, waiting for Echo to start the conversation. 

“What are you doing here, Bellamy?” Echo drawled, not looking at him still. 

Bellamy leant forward in his chair, forearms resting on his thighs, “Funny you ask,” He muttered sardonically, “I came to ask why you ruined our only chance of ever getting back down to that planet?” He found himself raising his voice, pointing his finger towards the window. He had caught Echo’s attention now. 

She sneered, “You wouldn’t understand.” 

Bellamy stood up tersely, “Enlighten me then, please.”

Echo turned to face him, her eyes shooting figurative daggers at Bellamy, he took a defensive postion with his feet apart and his arms crossed. Echo’s demeanour seemed relaxed or at the very least, tired. “I can’t go back.” She sighed. 

Bellamy’s brows creased in confusion, “What do you mean?”. Echo gave a melodramatic sigh and rolled her eyes. “I mean I was banished by Roan, word travels pretty quickly and I’m sure you know Azgeda holds grudges. I thought if we went down and got everyone out of the bunker I’d be scrutinized by my people, I thought they would kill me.” 

Bellamy was trying hard not to lose it, “So you thought…it was okay…to throw away any chance I had of ever seeing my sister again and…and attack my friend, she’s barely conscious, we thought she was going to die!” 

“I didn’t think, okay, I didn’t mean to harm Raven, but she attacked me here, I never intended to hit her in the workshop! I panicked, okay?” Echo argued, fully facing Bellamy now. “No! You obviously didn’t Echo! How fucking selfish are you? You know what, we’ll get the ship working, the six of us will go back down and you can stay here! How does that sound?” Bellamy shouted, his chest rising and falling rapidly, he was so close to punching something, whether that be Echo or the wall. 

She just stared at him, breathing heavily. The next thing Bellamy knew, Echo was kissing him, tugging at his shirt rabidly. Bellamy’s eyes widened, he managed to free his hands from Echo’s grip and push her off. Fuck, she had a death grip on him, he had marks on his arm and his shirt was torn at the bottom. 

“What the hell, Echo!?” He yelled. 

“Look…I’m sorry…I don’t know what came over me.” She exasperated, sitting down on the bed. Bellamy collapsed into the chair again. He looked at Echo, whose eyes were firmly trained on the floor. 

“I’m sorry I reacted so harshly.” Bellamy apologised, running a hand through his hair. “It’s just…I need to see Octavia again. I lost Clarke already, I can’t lose my sister too.” 

Echo nodded, “I understand.” 

Bellamy got up and headed for the door, “I need to watch Raven.” He left the door open as he walked away.

“Aren’t you going to lock it?” Called Echo.

“You’re our friend, Echo, not a prisoner. It was never locked.”  
Bellamy said, walking away. 

3 DAYS EARLIER

Raven had been drifting in and out of consciousness for about 4 days, the six, including Echo were becoming increasingly more worried by the hour. Raven wasn’t declining but she wasn’t exactly improving either. On top of that they had the ship to worry about, or rather, lack of one now. 

Without Raven, they were lost and had no clue as to what to do now. They were hopeless. The six of them sat in the old conference room where Raven did most of her written work, trying to make some sense of it. They all discussed what they were going to do solemnly.  
“I think we should just stay.” Emori said bluntly, she’d always been the more honest and ‘straight to the point’ one of them all. 

“No.” Monty insisted, “We can’t just stay up here forever, we won’t last much longer anyways.”

The other five snapped to attention and turned to Monty. “Wait…What did you say?” Bellamy enquired, his heart dropping to his feet. Monty looked around at his friends, his mouth gaping.

“I should have told you.” He uttered quietly. “Told us what?” Harper reached over to Monty and took his hand, she considered his eyes,  
begging for the news they all wanted to hear rather than what they need to hear. 

Monty swallowed, “The ring is dying, the same thing that happened to the whole of the Ark is happening here, too.” 

“How long have you known?” Bellamy asked, trying to remain calm.

“About a week.” 

Bellamy threw himself back into his seat, letting his head hang back. Was he ever going to see Octavia again? Right now, it didn’t seem likely, and that thought tortured Bellamy. 

“Right.” He announced, sitting up. “We are doing something. We aren’t going to die up here, I won’t let us.” 

“Easier said than done, Bellamy.” Murphy’s voice came from Bellamy’s left side, his expression didn’t match his tone of voice and the sarcastic wit he normally spoke with. But Murphy was right, Bellamy knew that. He had no idea how to save them without Raven, they couldn’t even help since nobody knew how to treat her. The room fell silence, the quiet was heavy and uncomfortable, Bellamy hated moments like these. 

Then, unexpectedly the middle screen on the wall came on. It was just static for a few moments but then the whole screen displayed an image of a man talking mid-sentence. Every few seconds the screen replaced itself with different image of the man talking, occasionally giving out sounds completely illegible. It was like a lagging video call. Yes, that was what it was.

“Can we try and get that working?” Bellamy asked in Monty’s direction. 

“I-I guess, I mean I can try.” He said, getting up and walking to the screen, reaching behind and fiddling with switches and controls. It seemed to work. The video seemed to run smoothly, barely faltering. 

“Hello. This is Robert McCreary, and this is a pre-recorded video currently being transmitted to your vessel right now. Our ship is orbiting your vessel, we have been in hyper sleep since the year 2049. We are part of the Eligius Corporation. Our aim is to uncover the secrets of the universe.” The man on the screen, Robert, flashed a sickening smile. “We would like to dock your vessel and make contact as it is now the appropriate time to awaken from hyper sleep and the only way we can is for kind souls like yourselves to de-activate our hyper sleep chambers, thank you and we will see you presently.” With that the screen turned itself off. 

The six of them gawped at each other, puzzled.

Suddenly, the whole ship jolted, sending a tremor throughout the whole ring.

“What the hell was that?” Harper exclaimed, hanging onto her chair so hard her knuckles turned white. 

Bellamy was suddenly worried, the sweat building in his palms, his gut was telling him that the man in the video was unwelcome news.

“That was them docking the ship.”


	7. Growing pains...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raven wakes up and tries to walk but fails when she's knocked over by the jolt of the eligius ship docking. Raven dies?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a short chapter I know and a bit of a dud too apart from the end! Sorry!

Raven

Raven woke up with one hell of a headache. The whole left side of her face felt numb in some parts and excruciatingly painful in others. The room around her was dark, not completely, but dark enough all the shadows melted into one. She sat up, wincing as she swung her legs off the bed. 

She peered closer at leg, feeling an absence of something familiar. Her brace. She scoured the room with her eyes. Why the hell did they take it off? She then understood why as she saw the brace propped up against the wall to her left. It looked badly damaged, several screws had come undone and the frame itself was crooked. Great. More work. Thanks Echo. 

Raven tried to lift herself from the bed, easing herself onto her good leg. She managed to stand on one leg for a few seconds before quickly hopping towards the wall for support. Jesus, that took a lot of energy out of her. She reached over for the dimmer switch and turned it on, not all the way though, bright lights were not something she wanted to deal with right now.   
With a groan, she pushed herself off the wall and took a few large hops towards the brace, bending down to pick it up. As she did, the loose screws fell onto the floor and scattered. 

“Shit.” 

She backed up against the wall and slowly slid down the wall until she was sitting, with her legs stretched out. Raven collected the screws from the ground and put them up on the small table on the wall next to her head. She held the brace up in front of her, inspecting it closely. The damage wasn’t too bad, nothing she couldn’t fix without a screwdriver. She tried to push the brace into a sort of leg shaped formation, but to no avail. Frustrated, she threw the brace down next to her. 

She rested her head against the wall behind her, staring up into the ceiling. Raven shut her eyes, gathering the strength to get up and walk, or limp, out of the door. She placed her hands on the wall behind and began to slide herself up, pushing into the ground as hard as she could with her good leg. The pain ebbing away in her bad leg. She grabbed onto the table for support as she stood as upright as she could. Gingerly, she put her other leg on the ground, shutting her eyes and trying to block out the pain. 

She put one foot forwards, the pain shooting up her leg. She ignored it, she had to overcome it. She put the next one forward, almost screaming as she put all her weight onto her leg. As she increased her pace, the pain lessened but was still there. She ran her hand along the wall down the corridor for support, she knew where everybody would be. 

Out of nowhere, a vicious tremor ran through the whole ship, knocking Raven off her feet and landing heavily on her left arm. It made a sickening crunch, she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to stifle a cry, but the pain was too much. She cried out, rolling onto her back, the bright lights overhead burning her eyes. 

“Help!” She screamed rolling on her front and using her free hand to drag herself along, it hurt like hell. She didn’t get very far before the pain felt like a thousand knives being stabbed all over her body. She was sure she had broken her arm, which of course was just what she needed to make her day even better. 

Trying to forget her pain, she tried to figure out what caused the ship to jolt like that, her mind ran a blank. There was nothing that could do something like that with such a significant impact, except from maybe a piece of large space debris hitting the ship. If it was that, Raven prayed, please just let it not have done damage to the ring.

She kept on trying to drag herself along the floor, she couldn’t stand up now, since one of her arms was injured. She continued to call for help, hoping somebody, anybody, would hear her. She managed to drag herself to the nearest door, maybe she could try and get up using the handle. She made a few more grunts of effort as her hand dragged her entire body wait behind her. She reached up, just about grasping the door handle. Raven pulled herself towards it and with all her strength, hoisted herself up. She was surprised she even was able to do it. She leant against the door, gasping for breath. She had to get to the council room where they would be. She leant against the wall, her right arm stretched out on the wall to stay upright, and struggled to limp along. The pain shooting in red hot flashes up her leg. The intense pain in her arm had subsided for now but when she moved it, it only returned, feeling worse than it did before.

“Guys?!” She called out, she surprised herself with how weak her voice was.

She waited for an answer, but none came. Raven sighed and kept on going, her body wracked with pain as she hobbled along helplessly.   
To her relief, she finally reached the council room. The large double doors were shut, and she was so tired. Raven leant on the wall and with her right hand, banged as hard as she could on the doors.

That was all she could do before falling heavily onto the ground, the pain flaring up once more. She lay on her back, a large black spot appearing in her vision. No. It wasn’t a black spot. It was Bellamy, looking over her with concern. His head flicked up to look past Raven.   
“Come and help me get her in here.” He said. 

Somebody hooked their arms under Ravens, she cried out, her arm demanding attention by making her feel like someone were drilling into it. Bellamy looked at Raven’s left arm, to his horror, it was crooked and inflamed. 

“How did that happen…” He turned his attention to Raven, who could barely tolerate the pain she was experiencing.   
“Fell…Tried to walk…Ship moved…” Raven managed to spurt out. Bellamy looked up at whoever was holding Raven from the top. She looked up at them, it was Murphy. 

“Raven.” Said Bellamy. 

“What…” She answered, her voice so small. 

“I’m going to grab your legs, okay?” He said, his voice sounding nervous. 

Raven didn’t reply, she just shut her eyes, bracing herself. She felt his arms go around her legs, he was barely touching her bad leg, but it felt as though he were throwing extremely heavy weights onto it. They carried her quickly into the council room, they lay her onto the table, it was cold against her feverishly hot skin. 

“Is she okay?” Somebody asked, Raven was too out of it to match the voice to a person. 

“I don’t know…” Someone else replied.

“What about the Eligius ship? Isn’t anyone going down.” Another person asked.

Eligius? What was that? And why were they talking about a ship. She heard them all mutter quietly, their voices fading into the background. Her eyes began to drift shut until she felt a warm hand on her bad arm. 

“She’s broken it.” Whoever it was said. 

“We’ll get her a splint.” Someone answered.

“Well, while you’re at it, you should fix her brace, she can’t walk without it.” They said, it was a woman’s voice. 

“Since you’re the one who kicked it so hard it broke, maybe you should.” The other person retorted.

That meant that the hand on her arm was Echo’s. Raven cracked her eyes open a sliver and looked up the outline of the person. Sure enough it was her. Raven flinched slightly, but she was so weak she wasn’t even sure Echo felt it. 

Raven couldn’t stop thinking about what they had said, Eligius. What was that? She had no clue.  
She felt again her eyes drifting shut, but she felt herself going cold. She couldn’t move, she tried but she couldn’t. Her brain panicked, she panicked. Was she dying? She couldn’t be? She tried desperately to move, to say something, but her body wouldn't let her. It was shutting down. 

“Raven?” 

“RAVEN!?”


	8. Revive and Survive...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raven's brief brush with death gives her friends a fright and Bellamy and Echo head to the Eligius ship to see who is there.

Bellamy

Bellamy looked over at Raven from where he stood in front of the screens. He noticed how her eyes slowly shut, and how her her head fell to the side. To his horror, he realised she’d stopped breathing. 

“Raven?” He asked, his voice fearful. He sprinted to Raven’s side on the desk, grabbing her shoulders, she was deathly cold. Echo’s hand retracted quickly, stepping back, her face paled with horror. “What have I done?” He heard her utter under her breath. 

“RAVEN!?” Bellamy practically yelled in Raven’s ear. He pressed his ear to her chest, his heart was pounding, but hers wasn’t beating at all. He couldn’t lose somebody else. 

“MURPHY!” Bellamy screamed hoarsely, “GET THE DEFRIBILLATORS!” 

Murphy nodded, a look of shock plastered on his face, he turned and ran as fast as he possibly could out of the room. Bellamy turned his attention back to Raven and began chest compressions with his hands, it was messy and irregular. He stopped, and shook her by her shoulders rather violently, “RAVEN!” He half-cried and half-yelled. 

“Bellamy…” Harper’s small voice came from behind him, “You’re no help to her when you’re hysterical.” Bellamy didn’t react. Harper pushed in front of him, she pressed two fingers to Raven’s neck. Her face dropped, she began chest compressions too, but this time hers were regular and fast. She pinched Raven’s nose and began giving her mouth-to-mouth. She released and went back to the chest compressions.  
“Where the hell is Murphy?” Bellamy growled, leaning out of the door, looking both ways for Murphy. As if on cue, he came barrelling down the halls, holding the CPR kit. He practically threw it at Bellamy. He raced back to Harper, handing her the kit who instantly took out the defibrillators, and turned the power on. It was a mad scramble. 

“Stand back!” She shouted, bringing the defibrillators down on Raven’s chest. Her body spasmed with the electricity. Bellamy stood completely still. His heart hammered. He heard a sob escape from Emori’s mouth behind him, Bellamy looked to his right to see Echo leaning against the wall, her eyes wide as she watched Harper try to resuscitate Raven. 

Harper brought them down again, Raven jolted, her eyes still shut.

“Come on, Raven.” Bellamy breathed. 

Harper’s chest was heaving, sweat pouring down her face, “Come back to us, Raven.” She pleaded. She brought them down one more time, Raven body quaked and then fell still. Harper stood back, sorrow filling her face. She looked over at Bellamy as she put the defibrillators down, “I’m sorry.” 

Emori collapsed in a heap, crying loudly into Murphy’s chest. Monty pulled Harper into a tight hug as he looked over their friend’s still body. Bellamy crossed to the table, grabbing Raven’s cold hand. A single tear escaped Bellamy’s eye and rolled off his cheek onto Raven’s hand.  
Then, something amazing happened. Her fingers twitched. Bellamy noticed the tiny movement in Raven’s hand. He dropped it and grabbed her shoulders. “Raven?” He asked, sounding hopeful. Her once dead eyes opened slowly, her fingers moved again, tapping the table beneath her. 

Bellamy gave a cry of joy, she was alive. He grabbed her hand again, this time it was warm. “You don’t give up easily, do you?” He asked breathlessly. 

“Never have, never will.” She replied quietly, she began to cough, it was unnerving, but she was alive. Everybody surrounded Raven, touching her face and holding her hands. They had never been more relieved in their lives. She gave them all a weak smile, she was exhausted, she needed to rest. 

Raven opened her mouth to speak, “What about the ship…Eligius?” 

Bellamy had completely forgotten about it, he looked over at Monty, “I should go down there, see who they are.” Monty looked uncomfortable, he glanced at Harper, then back at Bellamy. 

“Are you really going down there alone?” He asked. 

Bellamy shook his head. He turned to Echo and shot her a dark look, “You are.” She looked shocked and caught off guard, she then regained her composure, trying to keep a valiant look on her face, “It’s the least I can do…for what I did to Raven”. Bellamy looked back at everyone, “The rest of you stay here, get a gun and stay in this room. If anything happens we’ll let you know on the radios.” He said solemnly, “And look after Raven, we’ll figure out why she relapsed later.” He paced around the table and out of the room, with Echo in tow. She followed him to the armoury where they kept all of the weapons. He pushed open the doors and grabbed the nearest shot gun and holster he could find. He strapped it to his leg and crossed the room to where they kept ammo. He took a pack and loaded the gun. He tucked it away in the holster. 

“You ready?” He asked Echo, who had just finished putting her holster on. She gave a brief nod of her head, her expression serious.  
The two marched towards the docking area, their footsteps echoing off the walls around them. Deep down, Bellamy was terrified, he hadn’t had to deal with confrontation like this for over 6 years. The thought of having to keep one person safe terrified him, let alone a whole group. Now he knew how Octavia had felt for all this time. 

When they finally reached the airlock door, they stopped in their tracks. 

“We don’t have to go in.” Echo said calmly, turning her head to look up at Bellamy. 

Bellamy shook his heads, letting his shoulders fall. “We have to…” He looked at Echo.

“If they’re a threat…” He trailed off, but Echo knew, she nodded. 

Bellamy pressed the button on the airlock door, allowing them into the Eligius ship, the airlock doors shut behind them. It looked old, the walls were iron but were stained. They stepped in, their footsteps making loud clanging noises. Steam spurted out of pipes near the ceiling, a strong smell of gas filled the air. “Are their scrubbers working?” Echo asked, holding her shirt to cover her nose and mouth. Bellamy shrugged, he guessed they wouldn’t be breathing if they weren’t. Bellamy covered his airways too, he looked around, the corridors were dimly lit. 

“We can’t split up.” He turned to Echo, “We don’t know our way around yet.” Echo agreed. “Maybe we should start this way.” She spoke, her voice muffled. She started down the right-most corridor. They walked down a long corridor, the old ship made several noises that made Bellamy uncomfortable. 

“Look.” Echo said a few feet ahead of Bellamy, she was looking at something on the wall. He joined her and realised it was a map of the ship on a screen. He peered at it, his eyes searching for any indication of where the man from the video was. He found a bright red dot on the map with an arrow with led to a piece of writing saying, ‘You are here’. He noticed a search bar at the bottom of the screen, the pre-entered text read, ‘Search Location Here’. He looked at Echo, who shrugged. He typed in ‘Hypersleep’ into the bar and pressed enter. The screen buffered for a minute before a bright blue dot popped up in one of the rooms. 

“That’s not far from here.” Echo commented, and took off towards the room. Bellamy jogged behind to catch up. “Be careful!” He hissed. They reached the room in question, the door looked surprisingly clean and new, out of character for the rest of the ship’s interior. Bellamy pressed the button by the door and they opened with a hiss. Echo stepped in, raising her gun. She walked towards the rows upon rows of hyper sleep chambers. Bellamy followed, his gun raised too, his finger placed lightly on the trigger. 

He looked around the large room. It was disturbingly quiet. “They’re all empty.” Echo yelled in confusion, darting from one chamber to the next. It was strange, all right. 

Bellamy was about to call after Echo before he heard the click of a trigger and the chilling feeling of a gun pressed into the back of his head.

“Drop the gun.”

Bellamy complied, dropping the gun with such a clatter it caused Echo to turn around. She saw Bellamy held at gunpoint and raised her gun up, straightening her arms and narrowing her gaze. 

“Let him go.” She demanded, slowly coming closer. 

“ECHO!” Bellamy yelled, noticing a tall man, coming up behind Echo holding a knife. Before she could react he had pressed the surface of the knife against her throat, she threw her arms up in surrender. 

“Now…” Came the voice from behind Bellamy, “You’re going to shut up and tell me who the hell you are…”


	9. Arrival...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy and Echo find themselves in a potentially dangerous situation as they meet two threatening leaders of the mysterious Eligius ship...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again guys, I'm so sorry for that really long break I took but I've just been so stressed with real life that I forgot to update and kept putting it off so I'm reallyyyyy sorry for that :) This chapter is not the best it could be but my brain is actually fried right now but I promise that better and brighter things are coming up in the near future for this fanfic. Also, season 5 is almost here and I actually cannot wait, it's gonna be soooo good, anyways, enjoy this kinda short chapter, I'll probably check back on Octavia next chapter since she hasn't got much action in this fic. :) xxxx

The gun pressed into the back of Bellamy's head was an unpleasant yet familiar situation, one that happened quite a bit 6 years ago. His eyes were trained on Echo, a snarl on her face as a tall man with a scar running from his eyebrow to his top lip held a gleaming knife to her throat. 

"There's no need for this." Bellamy kept his voice steady, trying to gather his courage for this confrontation. 

A chilling laugh let out behind him sent a shiver down his spine. "What do you mean? You could be hostile, you brought guns with you."

"They were just a precaution." Bellamy replied, his voice as calm as he could make it. 

The man holding onto Echo let out an amused grunt, pressing the knife onto her throat harder so that the tip of the blade slightly cut the skin, a small red bead forming around the tip. 

"Let her go." He growled, his voice becoming threatening.   
"We'll let her go when we know you won't try to kill us." The man behind him replied. Bellamy remained silent. 

"Now, you're going to answer my question, who the hell are you?" 

Bellamy glanced at Echo, she tried to shake her head, her movement restricted as the man had now moved the knife up higher on her neck, smearing a line of blood up it.   
"Bellamy. That's Echo." He grunted in reply, he gulped as the cold barrel of the gun was pressed harder into the back of his head. 

"That wasn't so hard now, was it?" The man said, his voice snaking it's way into his ear, it was chilling. "Let her go." The man said in the direction of Echo and her captor. He pulled the knife away, tucking it into his belt and pushed Echo onto a hypersleep chamber. She glared at the man with the same fury that had died within her six years ago, Echo turned her head to look at Bellamy, she contemplated attacking them, but that would get him shot and killed. She couldn't do that. 

The gun was quickly retracted from Bellamy's head, but Bellamy wasn't stupid enough to believe it was being pointed at anywhere but him still. He turned slowly, his face clouded over in cold rage. He was surprised to see the man was a lot shorter in stature than he'd anticipated, nonetheless, he had a face that could instil fear in anyone, even Bellamy. A wide, sickening smirk broke out onto his face.

"Robert McCreary." He announced, extending a worn out hand to Bellamy, confused by this unusually mundane interaction considering the man had just been holding a gun to his head, Bellamy frowned. The man rolled his eyes theatrically, reaching his hand out further, "You shake somebody's hand when you meet them, we can't have been gone from Earth that long basic manners have gone extinct." He laughed, a chilling, villainous laugh that echoed around the room, making Bellamy and Echo nervous. 

Quickly, Bellamy extended his own hand out and briefly shook Robert's. He let his hand drop quickly, staring Robert in the face, trying to seem like he wasn't intimidated.   
Robert looked between Bellamy and Echo for a moment or so, eyeing them up, observing them, deciding what to do with them. He glanced over to the tall man with the scar who still stood a few feet from Echo, his hand on the hilt of his knife. 

"Johnson, go tell the others we have people, and get Diyoza in here, she'll want to meet our new...friends..." He'd let out the same sickly smile as he'd say 'friends' flashing his eyes at Echo, who in return, lowered her gaze at him and snarled animalistically. 

Robert pushed Bellamy forward towards Echo, startling him slightly. "The two of you stand there, if you say or do anything we'll put a bullet in your kneecaps." He'd say nonchalantly, gesturing for Johnson to leave. As the other man left the room, Robert turned to the two of them, adjusting his jacket. 

"Are there anymore of you on your ship?" 

"Five more." Bellamy replied.

"Five? You're telling me there's only seven people left of the human race aside from my people?!" He'd cry out in disbelief, "We went down to Earth...just to see...there's nothing, nothing alive...apart from one place."

Bellamy glanced over to Echo, who met his eye and shrugged slightly.

"A valley." Robert paced in between two chambers, darting his eyes up to see their reaction. 

"Whatever happened down there while we were gone doesn't matter, that valley is the last habitable place on Earth, and it's ours." 

He'd continue to pace some more, rubbing the back of his head. "We saw this ship in orbit when we first went down, our co-ordinates were set to that valley by our computers, we could only land there and then come here, so we did. We stayed down there for a few days, surveying anything in sight with drones. Then we went up again, we had to see if there was anyone here, anyone to bring down, then of course there's all of you. Doing a nice little job of survivin' up here." He'd stop and would turn to Bellamy, smiling like a maniac, "How about we bring you home?" 

Before Bellamy could say anything the doors burst open and three people emerged, walking through the gaps between the chambers towards them. In front was a woman, no taller than 5'7, her hair a medium brown and pale skin. Her face was battle hardened and stern, her body clad in similar looking body armour the Ark used to have before everything else happened. Behind her was the same man as before, Johnson, and another man, all wearing the same dark armour.

The woman looked Bellamy and Echo up and down, her right eyebrow slightly raised. She straightened up, the same stern look returning on her face. "I'm Charmaine Diyoza, former military strategist before the world went to shit." She'd say, her voice strong and confident. She'd turn her head around to Robert, narrowing her gaze. "Are there any more of them?"

"Five."

"Is that all?"

"That's what they say."

"We'll board their ship, search the whole thing," She'd turn back to Bellamy, glaring at him, "I'm certain they have nothing to hide from us, after all, we're going to save them."   
With that, Charmaine nodded to the two men behind her. They stepped forward, pulling out handcuffs and walked towards Bellamy and Echo, grabbing their wrists and attaching the cuffs around them. Bellamy tried to struggle against them, grunting with effort. Charmaine turned, noticing his struggle, "I wouldn't bother with trying to get out, struggle too much and they'll shock you. It isn't a nice feeling, trust me." She'd say with a slight smirk. Bellamy glared at her, letting his hands fall in front of him.  
Echo leaned towards him, still keeping her eyes on the four of them talking quietly together, "What are we going to do?" She'd ask, her voice low.  
Bellamy thinned his lips, frowning, "I have no idea.."

Charmaine turned around to face them again, raising her head in a dominating pose but keeping her eyes trained on them. "We'll escort you to your ship now, you can introduce us to your...crew, I suppose, then we'll talk about what we're going to do with you."

With that, she'd turn and would walk out of the room, the doors opening with a hiss as she walked out, Robert following her. The two men went around the back of them, pressing guns into the smalls of their backs. 

"Go." One of them barked, pushing the gun into Bellamy. 

Bellamy began to walk slowly towards the door, Echo slightly behind, he couldn't help but feel an overwhelming sense of dread as he walked along the aged corridors. He couldn't stop thinking about what they would do with Raven, with Murphy, with them all...


	10. No way out...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tragedy strikes at the bunker while Octavia and her council try to formulate plans to get out of the bunker and onto the surface.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> M'kay guys don't hate me for this chapter, I felt like I needed to shake things up a bit, but I hated doing this to this person as much as you'll hate reading it, considering you like the person, I guess. :) xxxx

After several days of arguing, a plan still hadn't been formulated. Octavia stood at the end of the table, her arms supporting her tired body as she leant on the metal table, looking down at the council members. They had been trying to think of safe and effective methods of getting their people out of the bunker and up onto the ground, to be free again, to live again. 

Octavia's eyelid's drooped with fatigue, her hair hung around her face, no doubt making her a threatening sight to see. She glanced around the table, the faces of Abby, Kane, Indra and Jaha stood out to her the most, the people who had given her the most guidance in her role as a leader. 

She stood up, sighing, and looked down at the list of possible plans, all too dangerous to carry out. The only one of them that had any chance of working was blowing the bunker doors out and trying to make a hole in the debris, while that was all well and good, an explosion in an enclosed area was a recipe for disaster, and if the debris was to fall through the ceiling and cut off the entry hall from the rest of the bunker, they'd be in an even worse position than before. 

"Octavia." Indra spoke, leaning back in the chair, raising an eyebrow. 

Octavia looked up, a pleading look on her face, "What do I do?" She asked, her voice with a hint of desperation, "We have no plan. We could be stuck down here for another two years maybe?" She'd slump back down on the chair, resting her head in her right hand, her left shuffling the papers around on the desk absent-mindedly. 

Abby leant forward on the desk opposite Octavia, folding one hand on top of the other, a stern expression on her face, "This isn't something we can work out in a matter of days-" She'd begin to say. Octavia jerked her head up, looking at Abby, "We had six years to think of something, six years, Abby!" She'd snap, harsher than she'd meant to.  
Abby didn't react, she'd raise an eyebrow slightly, giving Octavia that serious maternal look she always gave Clarke. 

Clarke. She'd know what to do, she'd find a way out of this, she was always the leader, not Octavia. Octavia was a warrior, she would rather be the fighter rather than the one giving out commands, but that was the way this was now, she didn't get a choice. This was her job and her duty. 

Octavia opened her mouth to speak, only to be interrupted by the door behind her bursting open and Jackson running in, gasping for breath. Octavia turned in her chair, frowning at the sudden intrusion. All eyes were on Jackson, who was leaning against the door, struggling to regain his composure.   
"What is it?" Octavia demanded, getting up abruptly and sending her chair flying back. 

"F-fire!" Jackson stammered, "In the residential area..." 

The news barely registered in Octavia's mind before she ran past Jackson and out of the door, she was aware of the hurried footsteps of her council members behind her as they ran as fast as they could to the residential area, already hearing the screams and smelling smoke.

"Get that fire out, now!" Octavia screamed hoarsely ahead, hoping they would hear her. Octavia pushed open the doors leading to the corridor that went to the living quarters, the corridor was filled with people covered in soot, coughing, and some people lying worryingly still, motionless. Smoke billowed out of the large doors leading to the rooms, some people running out and falling to the floor, blackened by the smoke and coughing their lungs up. 

Octavia noticed one woman lying beside her, barely moving apart from the uneven rise and fall of her chest, Octavia looked closer at her facial features covered in soot. Niylah. Octavia dropped down to her, grabbing her hand and feeling the pulse on her wrist, it was there but very faint, she glanced up to Abby who stood beside her and gestured to Niylah with her head. Abby knelt down next to them, checking that Niylah was breathing.

"Niylah...can you hear me?" She asked loudly, trying to be audible over the screams and cries of people injured and dying. Niylah stirred slightly, her eyes opening just a crack. Her eyes darted around under her barely open eyelids, her eyes landed on Indra, who stood over the three of them. Niylah opened her mouth to speak, but she coughed violently instead. Abby rushed to help her sit up, now noticing the burn marks on her bare arms. Niylah finished her coughing fit and tried to turn around in a sitting position to face Indra with Abby's help.

"G-Gaia...she-she's in there..."

Octavia's eyes widened and her head whipped around to see Indra, who look horrified. Octavia dropped Niylah's hand and stood up, running after Indra who had already took off towards the smoke filled living quarters.

"Indra! Stop!" Octavia called after her, already feeling light headed from the sheer amount of smoke bleeding out of the doors. The woman ignored her, still running towards the door. Octavia grabbed her wrist and pulled her back in an effort to stop her. Indra paused momentarily and whipped around the face Octavia, her wrist still in her tight grip.  
For the first time ever, Octavia saw Indra desperate, not at all the strong warrior she usually was.

"Please, she's my daughter." 

"You could die."

"She could die, I need to get her out of there."

"But-"

"If it were your brother, you would too, wouldn't you?"

Octavia was lost for words, she scrambled to find anything to say before Indra tugged her arm away, pulling free of Octavia's grasp before pulling off a wound up piece of cloth around her arm and tying it around her nose and mouth and running off into the smoke.

"Indra!" Octavia yelled, starting to run after her before someone stronger pulled her back. They held onto her, keeping her in place.

"Octavia, stop!" The voice belonged to Jaha, who sounded worried. 

"Let me go!" She yelled, struggling against him, trying to free herself. 

"I can't let you!" Jaha boomed in returned, struggling to be heard over the screams and the roar of the fire.

Before either of them had a chance to speak again, or look around at the dead and the dying, a large explosion was heard from the other side of the door, fire bursting out of the smoke, burning those alive who stood near it. Their screams ringing out louder than anyone's. 

Instinctively, Jaha pulled Octavia down, the fire almost reaching them. He held her down for a few moments more before everything came back into focus, the defeaning noise of the explosion caused ringing in her eyes, her head felt dizzy as Jaha released her from his grip and she sat up. 

"Indra..." Her voice echoed as she changed from a sitting position to a kneeling position. She stared ahead through the doors, the black smoke was gone, in it's place was light grey smoke drifting out. She barely noticed the hoarse crying around her, people screaming in pain from the burns. Everyone crying for their loved ones.

But they were both in there. Indra and Gaia. Both dead, dead for nothing. Octavia felt the pit of rage and sadness well up inside of her, overflowing. She wrapped her arms around herself as her eyes teared up, her bottom lip slightly quivering. 

"No..." She repeated to herself as she thought of them in there, their bodies burnt to nothing, suffering in their last moments. And Octavia did nothing about it. Nothing. She'd let someone else die, just like the way she'd stood there watching Lincoln be executed.

Her fault.

Octavia cried out, the noise bouncing off the walls. She collapsed from her kneeling position to lie in a heap on the ground, sobbing. This place had finally done it, it had broken her, it had taken away one of her closest friends. 

She just couldn't do it anymore.


	11. The first time again...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke finally realises that her friend are actually there with her, and they are not a dream like she was afraid they would be.

Raven lay worrying still on the ground, looking weak and badly damaged, Clarke made an effort to stop herself from shaking as she checked her friend's vitals. The six of them crowded around her, eyes wide as they watched the blonde working away on the ground. 

Clarke could practically feel everyone watching her, out of the corner of her eye she saw Bellamy, his face a displayal of shock and a smile. Clarke shook herself out of her awe and took a closer look at Raven's arm that looked bent out of shape, it would need a sling, she could do that if she woke up. No, when she woke up, Clarke banished the looming thought to the back of her mind, she wasn't losing going to lose her friend after 6 years of being apart. 

"Clarke!" 

Clarke quickly twisted around to see Madi bounding across the clearing towards them, holding a linen bag of their medical supplies. Bellamy put his hand on Clarke's shoulder as she begun to get up. He stood up instead and ran ahead to get the bag from Madi, who was still a distance away. He grabbed the bag from the girl's grip, who's eyes widened as she looked at his face, she knew him, he was the man in the drawing that Clarke carried around with her everywhere she went. He turned on his heels and thundered back towards them, tossing the bag to Clarke who pulled out a syringe already filled with some kind of painkiller. She quickly pushed the syringe into Raven's arm, even in her unconcious state, her body seemed to relax. 

"We need to get her to lab, there isn't a lot I can do until she wakes up." Clarke announced, turning around to face her friends. She hadn't gotten a good look at them yet, they all seemed different yet so familiar to her. Clarke stood up, noticing Madi hovering a few feet away from Echo. "Come over here." She called to the girl in Trigedasleng.  
Madi walked forward, keeping her head down as she walked to Clarke, standing slightly behind her as she peered up and around at the people before her. 

"Don't you recognise them?" She asked, now in English.

Madi's gaze redirected to Bellamy, she extended her arm and pointed at him. "Bellamy." Her voice was suprisingly confident, it didn't match her demeanour. Bellamy looked over at Madi, his brows furrowing in confusion. 

Madi looked around at the rest of them, nodding faintly in recognition. Behind them, Raven groaned slightly, shifting as she her eyes opened slightly. Clarke spun around, dropping down to check on her. 

"Raven?" 

Raven's head turned slightly to see Clarke, "I thought I was dreaming..." She croaked, her voice weak. 

"So did I." Clarke returned, smiling at her friend. "Took you long enough to get down here..."

"Sorry about that." Raven smiled, trying to sit up but wincing and recoiling in pain. Clarke gently pushed her back down onto the ground, "We need to get the rover over here so we can get you all back to the lab, you'll need a lot of rest."

"I can get it." Madi piped up from behind Clarke.

"No way. You're too young to drive that thing." 

"I am not! Besides, you can't leave your friend."

Clarke gave Madi a stern look that Abby always gave her when she was doing something she didn't like. Madi went silent, still looking at Clarke with pleading eyes. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Monty step forward, "I can go, just point me in the direction." Clarke straightened up, turning to face him. 

"I can't ask you to do that-" 

"It's for Raven, right? We all want to help." 

Clarke paused momentarily before pointing between two particular trees. "Head that way and keep going straight, we made little landmarks so we don't get lost, just follows those until you see it." She fished the keys out of her pocket and tossed them to Monty, who caught them. "I'll go too." Harper said from behind him, already beginning to walk towards the trees. Monty gave one last fleeting look at Clarke before following her. 

Clarke turned around to Bellamy. "How did she get like this?" She asked, gesturing in Raven's direction. 

Bellamy's face looked solemn as he glanced at their friend. "Doesn't matter, what matters is that she recovers." He looked back at Clarke, "And that you're here. That matters."  
Clarke felt the emotions within her rising again, feelings that she couldn't quite determine, sadness, anger, happiness, shock, the list go could on. The one thing that she couldn't believe was that they were there, all of them, all alive. Alive as they were the last time she'd seen them. She just wanted to cry, to know everything that happened. To know if they were as shocked as her, maybe even more.

But Clarke was different, she wasn't the same person as she was all those years ago, and neither were they, they certainly didn't look the same. They were older, of course, but that wasn't it. It was something else she couldn't quite pick up on. 

"Bellamy, I-" Clarke tried to speak, her voice already overflowing with emotions she could no longer hold back.

Before she could get the next words out he was already hugging her. This time, less rushed than it was a couple of minutes earlier. "I can't believe you're here." Bellamy's voice drifted into her ear, it was a sound she would never get enough of. He held onto her tightly as if he were afraid she'd melt away in his arms. "I'm not going anywhere." Clarke whispered, resting her chin on his shoulder, wrapping her arms tighter around him. 

"Y'know, I don't know anybody else who could have pulled this off." Came a voice from behind them, the two pulled away from each other and Clarke turned to see Murphy. The same damn smirk on his face, but Clarke couldn't have been happier to see it. 

"Pulled what off?" She asked, her tone sounding questioning.

"This..." He gestured around them, "Surviving."

"You all managed to pull it off too." She smiled.

"Yeah, well, not without you, if you hadn't of gotten the power on the ring working, we would have died a long time ago."

Clarke fell silent for a moment, before smiling again. 

The sound of the rover become prominent as it emerged from in between the trees, Monty and Harper just visible in the front seat, the rover drove rapidly across the clearing towards them, skidding to a halt a few feet from where Emori stood. The two jumped out and raced back towards Raven.

"Get her in the back." Clarke looked over at Bellamy, who proceeded to stoop down and pick up his friend, grunting. Raven groaned as her body jostled in his arms, her arm laying across her front, looking bent and swollen. Bellamy carried her to the back of the rover and lay her in gently on a pile of blankets. 

Clarke turned to the rest of them, "All of you get in the back." She walked around to the front of the rover where she climbed into the drivers seat, finding that the keys were already in the ignition. She heard the rover doors slam at the back and almost instantly after, Madi climbed into the passenger seat. The girl swivelled around in her seat to stare at the group of people crowded into the back, looking around at the vehicle, faint nostalgia present on their faces. 

Clarke stepped down on the pedal and the rover lurched forward, she drove towards the opening in the woods, the aged vehicle shaking around them. She felt her heartbeat pounding around her body as she drove ahead, unable to stop herself from glancing at the rear view mirror at her friends, she almost didn't dare to believe they were here. She'd had that dream too many times, but this, this was real. They were there.

They were finally back with her.

The way it should be.


End file.
